7.2 and Earthquake

ATTENTION: With the taken out haste scaling of Earthquake with 7.2.5 the content of this article is NIL! Do NOT try this.

Our new golden trait, Seismic Storm, has been the topic of much discussion on Discord. And after a long time of silence, we’re finally posting the answer to the frequently asked question whether to use Earthquake on single target instead of Earth Shock.

It depends. The main point first: You won’t get magically higher dps on pure single target fights with the usage of Earthquake. But! It’s so much fun.

Now the data. To use Earthquake for single target, you need to fit these conditions:

I’ve seen reports of some who tested this that they were able to use Earthquake as the spender before reaching even 30% haste. But having 33.34% haste is the surefire method. If your character and situation fit all these conditions, congratulations; you won’t need to use Earth Shock if you don’t want to.

The advantage of Earthquake during single target is the instant transition to AoE without any need to change anything since getting Seismic Storm while casting Earthquake on two targets is already a gain.

The obvious disadvantages are that you’ll stack haste, therefore not performing optimally on pure patchwerk fights (a loss of roughly 2%-4%), and all weaknesses of Earthquake apply fully. Any non-predicted boss movement hurts your dps, as you need the full duration to deliver the damage. So if something like a single-add spawn happens, casting Earthquake might not deliver damage fast enough, resulting in a loss. And last but not least: It is not a gain on single target. It’s pretty much equal (depending on gear, some slightly higher or lower values compared to Earth Shock have been reported)

Playing with Earthquake for single target is fun as hell. Not having to fear overcapping smooths out gameplay by a lot. At least for me. This last part here is obviously feelycrafting right now. I enjoy playing with Earthquake on single target. The challenge is good positioning.

Legendary items: Since you will never be casting Earth Shock, it is quite clear that the legendary boots and shoulders will be significantly devalued. Sephuz’s Secret can provide an additional Earthquake tick when its effect is utilised, but apart from stat gains, the other legendary items do not directly benefit this build.

You can find a profile in this post to see how your character fares with this. Make sure to copy your character values into it.